A curfew was imposed in Manipur’s Imphal West district on Saturday as protests erupted after the bodies of a woman and two children were found floating on the Barak river.
The bodies are suspected to be of three among the six Meitei persons who had been missing from the Jiribam district since November 11.
Internet and mobile data services were also suspended in Imphal West, Imphal East, Bishnupur, Thoubal, Kakching, Kangpokpi and Churachandpur districts for two days as tensions escalated.
This came as a mob stormed and vandalised the home of Bharatiya Janata Party MLA and Manipur chief minister’s son-in-law Rajkumar Imo Singh, an Assam Rifles official told Scroll.
The mob also vandalised the home of Khuraijam Loken, the MLA of Wangoi Constituency.
At Khwairamband market, the main market of Manipur, women vendors held a protest rally against the killing, the police said, PTI reported.
Demonstrations were also taken out in Bishnupur’s Ningthoukhong and Lamlong in Imphal East.
Earlier in the day, Hmar protestors threw stones at security personnel outside the Silchar Medical College and Hospital. The police baton-charged the protestors to bring the situation under control.
The six persons who had gone missing on November 11 were a grandmother, her two daughters and three grandchildren. Meitei groups had alleged that they were abducted by armed Hmar men when they attacked the area on Monday morning.
Although family members were yet to identify the three bodies found on Friday evening, their descriptions matched three of those who had gone missing, The Indian Express quoted unidentified security officials as saying.
The bodies were taken to the Silchar Medical College and Hospital in Assam for a post-mortem examination, a senior Assam Police official told Scroll.
After the bodies were found on Friday evening, an emergency Cabinet meeting of the Manipur government was held around 10 pm. A decision was taken at the meeting to declare any organisations or individuals associated with the attack on women and children in Jiribam on November 11 as unlawful.
On the same day that the six persons went missing, suspected Kuki militants also attacked a Central Reserve Police Force post in Jakuradhor, after which ten of the suspected militants were killed in a gunfight with security forces.
However, Kuki organisations have claimed that the individuals killed in the gunfight were village volunteers. The term “village volunteers” has been used for armed civilians guarding villages since the ethnic clashes broke out in Manipur in May 2023.
At least 255 persons have died and more than 59,000 persons displaced since the clashes broke out between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zo-Hmars in May 2023. There has been an uptick in violence in the past week, with at least 17 persons having been killed since November 7.